The flight with Swiss was rather relaxing and we actually managed to get some sleep on the way to Zuerich. Noble was already a bit sick and after a few whiskeys back in Hong Kong, she slept quite long and well. Since we were a bit late, we had to rush to our connecting flight to Stuttgart (which is a nice way saying that I managed to forget my book on the plane). We met Hannes Bobke who was on the same flight (also from Hong Kong but we had to content ourselves with the "wooden seats" in the back).

We arrived safely in Stuttgart where my brother Alex picked us up in our new car (a dark blue B-class). First stop was my parent's place for breakfast where we received a highly emotional "Welcome back". It was great for us to see my family again and we happily chatted away the morning with a proper German breakfast!

Being tired and feeling a flu coming and being keen on seeing our own place, we drove home. Nothing had changed except for a new lamp installed by my parents and a full fridge (bless my parents), a fruit basket (bless them again), our birthday gift from my brothers (an electric grill) and lots of mail. We spent the rest of the day unpacking, enjoying coffee and just relaxing.

Nevertheless, we did get sick and managed to completely "spoil" our homecoming ... instead of meeting friends, we stayed home, drank lots of tea and water and tried to get well asap. It seemed to me that the flu was psychological - subconsciously, I didn't want to be here so I got sick ... ;) ...

Settling in was easy with the same place, same job and loads of friends wanting to know how we were. We organised our own "Welcome Back" Party at the weekend and it was brilliant seeing all our friends (on top of my home soccer club climbing to the top of the table and hopefully winning the German Championship next Saturday). As you can see - it was a rather quick and easy "back to normal" ... or was it?

Life is definitely different after such a trip. There are countless subtle changes in behaviour and attitude, bigger changes in our relationship with us being much much closer than before, a renewed sense of direction and the sereness that we made a wise choice embarking on this trip!

Whenever we meet friends or colleagues, the first question always is: How was it? Fair question but trying to answer that question without boring the questioner to death with a detailed recapture of our trip is a bit tricky - even displaying a firework of adjectives ranging from "brilliant" to "out of this world" does not do justice to the experiences we made throughout the journey.

The trip has been on our minds and souls for such a long time that it felt like a miracle when we packed our bags and left. A wise man summed it up perfectly for us: "The journey is the reward" - every day was a miracle with memories deeply engrained in our minds and thoughts.

Thank you all for being part of our journey, following our daily small and big adventures, sending us countless messages, words of encouragement and giving us this precious feeling that we may be out of sight but definitely not out of mind!